JeetBloghttp://www.jeetblog.com
Tech Tweaks ,Productivity Hacks ,Blogging Tips And A Better LifeThu, 02 Jul 2015 17:21:24 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.6jeetbloghttps://feedburner.google.comThe Future of Online Advertisinghttp://www.jeetblog.com/future-of-online-advertising/
Thu, 02 Jul 2015 17:21:24 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=884Mathew Ingram says the online advertising house of cards will topple soon. It’s an insightful post, though a depressing read for a web publisher like me. He is right about the fraud part, and this is also prevalent in other forms of online marketing (how many real people you think tweet/retweet those hashtags?).

The silver lining in the post was a reference to the new attention metric Chartbeat is trying to promote. As a publisher I have always vouched for the fact that reader’s attention and the time he spends on a web page should be a big factor in measuring returns on the ads on that page. If you left a page in a wink, chances are you didn’t look at the banners at all.

The post ends with this doomsday scenario:

The bottom line is that with bot-driven traffic, pixel-stuffing and other tricks, kickbacks and outright fraud, on top of the fact that less than 50% of all online ads may even have a chance to be seen by a real human being, the online advertising market is like a house of cards that is ready to topple–or a tiny child’s bicycle being ridden by dozens of clowns, all perched on each others’ shoulders. How long before it collapses completely?

I doubt if the collapse is going to happen soon. Programmatic demand continues to rise. With the print dying, web will only become more formidable as a medium to market on. And while better and more accurate ways to measure will arrive and be standardized eventually, I think, to pick one of the lines from Mathew’s post, advertisers will come to terms with this reality:

….as John Wanamaker famously said: “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.

]]>Om’s Storyhttp://www.jeetblog.com/om-malik-story/
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 15:39:08 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=878There are very few people in the tech journalism/blogging space who can turn dull facts and events into amazing stories. Om Malik is one of them. I don’t recall ever not being captivated by his write-ups. So when I came across this fascinating story of the man himself, I sat up and took notice. Lots of interesting facts and life lessons. Like this one on a wrong career move:

At the height of the dot com bubble, he left Forbes at the end of 1999 to join Hambrecht & Quist, Asia Pacific as an investment manager, and moved to San Francisco. For the first and only time in his life, Om had made a career move based solely on money instead of logic and passion. And it was a mistake.

.. and this heartwrenching account of his state of mind after the Gigaom collapse:

“It was my life for 14 years. I gave up everything for it,” he said. “I had no social relationships. I didn’t get married. I stayed alone focused on this one thing, because it’s the only thing that mattered to me. And towards the end when I thought things were going great, I thought I could just step away, that my child was grown up. And it wasn’t.”

You are not going to regret spending time on this one. Must read.

]]>The Valuation Gamehttp://www.jeetblog.com/valuation-game/
Mon, 22 Jun 2015 19:23:54 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=875Jacob Silverman writes about the new found love of venture capitalists: Media. I don’t agree with many of the points and assertions in this one but it certainly makes for a good read with some interesting insights. For instance, on startup valuation:

Before sending out a term sheet to potential investors, Blumberg has to decide how much his company is worth. The number his team comes up with is $10 million—an essentially arbitrary figure, as he’s quick to admit. “The valuation, like everything in this startup world, is a story you’re telling,” Blumberg says. It’s a promise of future growth. The value isn’t, in any familiar sense, real. But all this is typical for a startup, especially in the midst of the present tech bubble.

I remember speaking to a friend about this recently and recalled his emphasis on ‘vision’, because valuation isn’t about the numbers but about the vision he said.

Whatever optimization techniques or conversion tactics you are looking to execute, it is going to be nothing but shooting in the dark if you don’t know your blog’s goals.

Tracking everything just because it can be tracked is a sheer waste of time. Understand the goals first. Prioritize them. Then execute tasks accordingly and track them.

Keep in mind that your goals maybe entirely different from that of the blogger next door. If you are looking to have your readers click on ads and make you more money that way, you shouldn’t be as worried about the bounce rate as he might be.

Get the picture?

]]>How Publishers Can Make the Most Out of Reader Commentshttp://www.jeetblog.com/publishers-make-most-of-reader-comments/
Tue, 14 Aug 2012 08:14:08 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=663One of the most important things that separates a blog from other mediums of publishing like a newspaper or a static website is its dynamic nature. The word dynamic not only applies to the ability to post new content or update old ones in real-time, it also means reader participation in a quick and effective manner through comments.

The comments section of a website or a blog is a platform for the reader to express his opinion about the article he just spent time reading. This feature used to be limited to blogs at one point of time, but now, almost every content website that updates regularly has them enabled.

For instance, you could be reading WSJ or NYTimes as part of your morning routine and once you feel an urge to say something about an article all you need to do is go online, find the web counterpart of that article and post your comments there. No sending of letter to the editor and no waiting of the next issue to see if your letter was published…you could start the discussion in an instant on the newspaper’s website.

Commenting platforms have evolved over the last decade and so has the commenting habits of readers (or so it seems). Anonymous criticism or trolling as it is infamously known is a big problem that publishers face these days. It has even forced them to shut down comments completely. Then there’s our old foe – spam. Wherever you go, spam follows and comments are no exception. Large sites tend to get so much spam in the comments that they have to take measures like developing advanced software or deploying manual moderation on a big scale to counter the nuisance.

So, like everything, there are pros and cons to comments. But if you were to ask me, I’d say the pros outweigh the cons. In my own experience of running Guiding Tech and some other sites, I have found some novel uses of comments that I intend to share today.

Here are the ways in which I think publishers, both large and small, can make the most out of reader comments and the commenters.

Gathering New Ideas

For bloggers, one of the biggest impediments to day-to-day writing task is idea block. New ideas suddenly seem to stop hitting you and you find yourself staring at the screen and the blinking cursor.

There are many ways to tackle this problem. Browsing reader comments is one of the better ways to do it. Readers tend to post their own tips in the comments, some of which can often be harnessed into full fledged posts. For example, just yesterday we did an article on accessing an Android phone’s SD card over the air. Now, we have had similar articles in the past but this trick never occurred to us until a reader posted a comment about that on an older post.

The ideas can also come from the questions that readers pose, and the problems that they say they face while trying out the suggestions in the post.

Spotting Talent

Some of the best posts on Guiding Tech have been written by commenters who used to comment frequently and often shared brilliant insights. In fact, some of them had never written a single word of blog content before I emailed them and persuaded them to convert their ideas into blog posts.

Keeping an eye on commenters for potential hires is something that all multi-author website owners should do. Writing talent is very hard to find these days. Hence innovative ways like these need to be implemented to fuel the flow of new content on the site.

Letting Commenters Help Each Other

One of the interesting things I have found about commenters is that a significant percentage of them subscribe to the thread and come back to it to answer questions asked by other commenters. This is actually a great reason to always have comments open, even on the oldest posts on your blog. The influx of spam compels some publishers to take steps like closing comments on posts older than 60 days or something like that, but I think that’s a mistake.

A lot of times it has happened that a commenter posed a difficult question on an article on Guiding Tech, and due to time constraints the writer couldn’t answer it. I have found that these questions invariably get answered by a random visitor after a few days. There have been occasions when a comments thread has more information than the post itself. This not only helps you but also a new visitor who lands up on that post looking for answers.

Criticism

For anything to progress, constructive criticism is important and websites or blogs are no exception. Comments offer a way for readers to criticize the author, the content, his style of writing etc. While this can go out of hand at times, not having them at all doesn’t help either.

Often I have found that a good criticism in the comments lets the author look back at his practices and helps him contemplate on ways to further refine it.

Recently, we had a nice post on an Android feature on Guiding Tech. We pride on well-researched and quality content but we are humans too and prone to occasional errors. A few days after the post was published, a Google employee who was a part of the Android development team commented on the post criticizing it for incorrect information and data. The author decided to research again and found that the Google guy was indeed right. This revelation led him to delete the post, and rightly so.

This was a lesson learnt and henceforth the author has incorporated some additional research methods in his workflow to ensure authenticity of each piece of information that is shared in our posts.

Your Turn

That was how I have been utilizing reader comments, and how I think all the publishers should do it. What do you think? Comments are a boon or bane?

]]>The Right Approach to Web Marketinghttp://www.jeetblog.com/right-web-marketing/
http://www.jeetblog.com/right-web-marketing/#commentsMon, 18 Jun 2012 09:26:04 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=638I have always believed that marketing without selling your soul is possible. You need not resort to questionable tactics to sell your product. Earning trust the right way is how you should go about it. And that requires time, patience, consistency, persistence and willingness to be in the game for the long haul.

Web publishing is no different. You create content and expect that readers will like it and come in hordes. Like any form of marketing, web marketing too could be done through questionable tactics. What constitutes such tactics isn’t really a matter of perspective any more; Google’s Panda and Penguin updates have shown that black hat SEO techniques are dead. If you are not adding value, you are simply dispensable for Google and for your readers.

It’s been more than two years of starting Guiding Tech in probably the most crowded niche of the web: technology, and right from the first day I have followed the philosophy of “marketing without selling your soul”, which is what Rand explains beautifully in his presentation below. I can tell you today, after looking at Guiding Tech’s pageviews and other stats, that it’s absolutely the right path to tread.

I agree 100% with all of Rand’s points. If you are a blogger or a publisher, or anyone who’s involved with web publishing in some way or the other, it’s time to realize that content is truly the king.. it always was.

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/right-web-marketing/feed/1The Funniest Instagram-Facebook Tweetshttp://www.jeetblog.com/the-funniest-instagram-facebook-tweets/
http://www.jeetblog.com/the-funniest-instagram-facebook-tweets/#commentsMon, 09 Apr 2012 18:48:08 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=627Facebook just acquired Instagram and the best place to get that news was, of course, Twitter. A number of hilarious reactions emerged and I decided to share some from my timeline here. Have a good laugh!

Quite true. It also applies to our lives, isn’t it? We tend to assume and draw conclusions from a sentence, a look, a sound, an appearance, a situation or a moment. We rarely care about the context. If we did, life wouldn’t be so much fun, right? You know, less misunderstandings, more respect for the individual, less conspiracy theories, constructive curiosity…who needs all that simplicity!

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/lack-of-context/feed/1The Easy Routehttp://www.jeetblog.com/the-easy-route/
http://www.jeetblog.com/the-easy-route/#commentsMon, 01 Aug 2011 13:24:16 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=5761. A few weeks ago, I received a guest post request for GT Mobiles. The request was by someone whom one can call an active blogger, someone who maintains more than 1 blog and regularly interacts with other bloggers on Twitter, Facebook etc. I had interacted with him too, so I knew who he was. He had also actively commented on articles on Guiding Tech in the past.

So, when I received a request from him regarding a guest post, I readily agreed. I assumed he was a genuine blogger so I didn’t have to worry about the content.

I assumed he was genuine.

2. I was in the process of hiring writers for Guiding Tech, and a friend of mine introduced me to a writer, who apart from maintaining his own blog, also wrote for a number of sites, some of them being well known. I checked his articles, and found that he was good. I decided to seriously consider him for the position.

I assumed he was genuine.

Turned out that my assumptions were wrong. The first guy copy pasted the majority of content from other sites in his guest post. And the second guy, I just found out, almost copy pasted an entire article from a top tech blog, to another blog where he started writing recently.

In one of the episodes in the first season of 24, the famous US TV series, the protagonist Jack Bauer tells his assistant Nina Myers why he exposed some of his own colleagues when he found that they took bribes. Here’s what he had to say:

“You can look the other way once, and it’s no big deal, except it makes it easier for you to compromise the next time, and pretty soon that’s all your doing; compromising, because that’s the way you think things are done. You know those guys I busted? You think they were the bad guys? Because they weren’t, they weren’t bad guys, they were just like you and me. Except they compromised… Once. “

The two people we are talking about in this post aren’t someone who cannot produce quality stuff. They are the people who are capable, and know the shit. They have produced good and original content. But they decided to take the easy route once and hoped no one will find out..they decided to compromise once.

The result is that I lost faith in the first guy and didn’t publish his guest post. Not only did the guy lose an opportunity to promote his blog and get a backlink, he also lost an opportunity to establish a professional relationship with someone from whom he could have benefited in a number of ways in future.

I obviously decided not to hire the second guy. I did email him to know his side of the story though. He mentioned that he forgot to credit and he should have. For me, it wasn’t really about forgetting to credit. It was about not doing the things he could have done if he had invested some time. It was about taking a part of someone else’s work to produce a below par article that lacked originality.

It was about taking the easy route.

And as you see, sometimes, it really pays to never take the easy route.. to not compromise.. not even once.

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/the-easy-route/feed/5On Eliminating Distractionshttp://www.jeetblog.com/on-eliminating-distractions/
http://www.jeetblog.com/on-eliminating-distractions/#commentsSun, 27 Mar 2011 16:15:18 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=544Seth Godin published a nice post few days ago where he talked about doing actual work by eliminating distractions. He proposed a two-device solution where one device would be reserved for hardcore work, and other for fun activities.

For those who do not have an iPad or another device, I have an idea – use different user profiles on your computer. One for work, and other for fun. You could also block sites like YouTube and Facebook on the work profile if you cannot resist visiting them while doing something important.

The thing about using separate profiles is that you can not only block sites but even distracting software, browser extensions and much more. Obviously, you would need to know what distracts you. It might not be very easy initially to figure out. But once you do, you can mass-block those on your work profile.

And when you need to take a break, and have fun, just switch to the other profile. That also ensures that work doesn’t come in the way of your fun time. Sounds good?

So, how do you eliminate distractions while working?

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/on-eliminating-distractions/feed/4Thoughts On Working From Homehttp://www.jeetblog.com/thoughts-on-working-from-home/
http://www.jeetblog.com/thoughts-on-working-from-home/#commentsWed, 16 Mar 2011 14:16:32 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=532I’ve been working from home since April, 2008. It’s been 3 years now so I thought I should write a bit about the pros and cons, and whether everyone should consider going for it.

Working from home isn’t a new phenomenon. Most of the time you’ll find people who are self-employed – especially, freelance writers, journalists, photographers, designers et al – like to have a home office and usually work from there when they are not in the field. So, bloggers like me have now joined people like them in this commute-less(mostly) working experience.

I’ll definitely accede to the argument that working from home is something that you’ll find more and more people opting for these days. The rise of the world wide web – and the unprecedented earning opportunities it has brought along – has caused many to use it as a medium to create a full-time income source.

Moreover, even traditional office goers, who could have never imagined that they’ll enjoy the freedom of working from home, are now asking their bosses to let them do that. And surprisingly enough, most of the bosses these days don’t seem to have issues with that. If the employee wants to avoid the hectic commute and claims that he can be more productive while working from home, why not let him do that.

I think even if 5% of the skilled working population of the world starts working from home, that could result in an unimaginable decline in traffic snarls, pollution, road rages and accidents, and other such related things. That said, the grass isn’t usually greener on this side. I’ll talk more about that later but first lets see what are the advantages of having a workplace that’s just a few steps from your bedroom.

The obvious advantage is the freedom from long commutes and traffic congestions. In my previous job, it took around 2 hours to reach office from my home. Sure the company used to send an air-conditioned cab for pick and drop, but the commute still amounted to a lot of wasted time…the time I could have utilized in learning a new skill or practicing an ignored hobby.

Another advantage is the ability to set your own routine. While in some cases it might not be possible and you would still need to be at your laptop from 9 to 5, in most of the cases the person working from home has a specific work target that he needs to meet irrespective of when he works. So that means you get to decide your own working hours, the hours when you are likely to get the most work done.

You can also attend emergency family situations faster if you are always at home. Be it the kids or an ailing grandparent, you can quickly come to their rescue if something goes wrong.

So, working from home has its own charm for sure. But, as I said earlier, the grass is not always greener on this side. The lack of co-workers to talk to, and the absence an office environment could be more of an impediment than you might think. If you are someone who likes to have people around when you are working, it could be extremely difficult to stay productive and creative while working alone in your home office.

If you stay with your family, it could be difficult initially to set and follow a work routine. Your family members will take time to come to terms with the fact that you need a no-disturbance time zone to get work done. Friends and neighbors might not understand that you are “working” even though you are at home. They could come knocking at odd hours and expect you to respond and meet them amicably, because, after all, you’re at home and not in the office.

One more situation you’ll find yourself frequently in is the 24-hour working mode. The lack of set work hours could mean that you are glued to your computer screen when your family expects you to be watching TV with them. You are working when people in your previous office are done with their workday. You are almost always working.

Overall, working from home isn’t as easy as you might think. Ask me, I’ve been doing it for the last 3 years. And I have encountered a number of obstacles on the way. Obviously, I’m still doing that means I overcame them (I like to believe that I did). But this working from home thing is definitely not for everyone.

What do you think? Have you given a shot at working from home yet? Are you thinking of going that route?

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/thoughts-on-working-from-home/feed/7Writing Practicehttp://www.jeetblog.com/writing-practice/
Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:45:31 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=529I was writing a post for you today. Yes, after a long long time. It was a nice topic and I had some ideas to share. But then, as I wrote, I realized that words were just not flowing. I typed…then hit the delete key…then typed again. It just went on and on until I realized that it’s been an hour and only 150 words of half-baked content was on the page. Pretty dismal situation, isn’t it?

There was a time – and it wasn’t long ago – when I could produce almost 1000 words in an hour. And all quality stuff. But lately, I haven’t written much. Writing, like any skill, needs practice. The more you write, the better you get at it.

]]>7 Lessons I’ve Learnt In 9 Months of Starting & Running a Tech Bloghttp://www.jeetblog.com/7-lessons-ive-learnt-in-9-months-of-starting-running-a-tech-blog/
http://www.jeetblog.com/7-lessons-ive-learnt-in-9-months-of-starting-running-a-tech-blog/#commentsMon, 11 Oct 2010 15:39:15 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=489I published the first post on Guiding Tech on Jan 1, 2010. Nice date to start something, isn’t it. That also makes sure that I would never forget its birthday.

So, one might ask why the hell did I start a tech blog when the niche is already overcrowded. Well, first, I know more about tech blogging than about blogging on any other topic. And second, a crowded niche means there’s already a huge market you can tap on. You just need to produce quality stuff and market it the right way.

The end of September marked the completion of 9 months for the blog. I have to say that these 9 months, both for the blog and myself, have been a huge learning experience. There have been both good and bad times, points of immense excitement as well as complete helplessness, frequent surprises and myriad frustrations.

I thought I’ll share some of the lessons I’ve learnt along the way, here on this site. If you are planning on starting a blog, it might help to know what you are up against.

1. It’s Bloody Hard Work!

I knew blogging was hard work. I’ve been doing it since 2008. But starting a blog in 2010 and ensuring that it survives and thrives is harder. And it’s only going to get tougher from here on.

Now, if you’ve got cash in hand and can buy a blog or two, or have the resources to hire great writers and marketers, that’s a different story. But if you are planning to bootstrap a blog like I did and want to make money out of it, well, just know that it’s pretty rough out there.

The funny thing is, in just 2 years since I started working online fulltime, things have changed drastically. Building links have become harder, going viral on a social site is harder, writing unique content is harder….overall, it has become a tougher nut to crack.

2. Relationships Matter

Yes, this hasn’t changed. And this won’t change till humans exist. If I tell you that most of the success Guiding Tech has had so far was, in some way or the other, due to my network of friends in the blogging and social media industry, that won’t be an exaggeration.

I think you should start building relationships even before you start a blog. The best ways to get started is by making insightful comments on the blogs of people you admire, offering them help with something and doing it without expecting anything in return, getting them on Gtalk or Skype and initiating constructive discussions…many ways to do it really.

3. Getting Featured on Popular Sites Works

Whether it’s Mashable, Lifehacker or Problogger, if they talk about an article on your site, it’s good. It exposes your site to new people and helps to build authority in the eyes of Google. In fact, I’d go on to say that getting featured on high authority sites is much better than a short-lived exposure on Digg’s or Reddit’s front page.

You should try and seize every opportunity of having your article linked by a top blog. That could involve sending them tips, getting involved with their community and getting your presence felt, requesting those site owners for a guest posting opportunity and any other such networking/relationship building methods.

4. Digg is Dead

You might have heard this before but let me say that again: Digg is dead! Yes, I urge all the aspiring bloggers to not waste time and energy to get on the Digg front page. Gone are the days when a Digg front page brought tons of traffic and backlinks….not any more.

I won’t ask you to ignore Digg completely but don’t focus on it. Instead, focus on other marketing methods and building relationships.

5. It’ll Take More Time Than You Think

Everything will take more time than you think. Whether it’s writing a post, getting a certain number of visitors, getting a new design up and running…everything!Things just don’t fall into place within our expected timeframe.

Hence, if you’ve set certain goals for the site, I’d suggest that you revisit them and increase the timeframe for them.

6. Admin Issues Can Suck Life Out Of You

You know who’s the most efficient blogger? Someone who can write well, and also possesses considerably good designing and programming skills. If you don’t belong to this category of people, be ready to get frustrated frequently when you run into a design issue, a server issue or any other coding related problem.

The way out is to learn design and coding basics, or get help from trusted friends who can design or code. Don’t spend days trying to get that navbar aligned properly, when you know that you don’t know what you are doing.

7. Creating Action Based Goals is Better

Finally, I’ve learnt that creating action based goals like you’ll write one post each day, or you’ll tweet two links every hour, is much better than stat based goals like 100,000 monthly pageviews by August or 200 subscribers by next month end.

While you should keep an eye on various blog stats and analyze their growth or decline, lets admit it – you don’t have a lot of control over them. They are governed by factors like Google, a Digg front page, a tweet by a top twitter user etc.

What you do have control on is the work you can produce. Hence, when you set targets, it’s better to focus on what you can do and set goals accordingly.

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/7-lessons-ive-learnt-in-9-months-of-starting-running-a-tech-blog/feed/10On Leadership and Attracting Followershttp://www.jeetblog.com/on-leadership-and-attracting-followers/
http://www.jeetblog.com/on-leadership-and-attracting-followers/#commentsThu, 29 Apr 2010 14:29:00 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/on-leadership-and-attracting-followers/Here’s an excellent video on leadership that I came across today. It was played by Derek Sivers at the TED conference. Probably the best video I’ve seen on leadership yet.

What do you think? True, isn’t it?

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/on-leadership-and-attracting-followers/feed/11Check out Guiding Techhttp://www.jeetblog.com/check-out-guiding-tech/
http://www.jeetblog.com/check-out-guiding-tech/#commentsTue, 27 Apr 2010 15:52:53 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=476This post has been long overdue, but, as a wise man once said, better late than never. So here I am introducing my new tech blog – Guiding Tech.

It’s been a while since I started it with my co-founder Himanshu, and the response has been pretty good so far. The blog covers how-to articles, in-depth Windows guides and tutorials, and detailed posts on internet tools, software and other interesting tech related stuff.

Check it out and give me your feedback on the content. I suggest that you browse through the categories listed on the sidebar. Here are some of its most popular articles.

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/check-out-guiding-tech/feed/17Essential Skills You Need To Run An Online Businesshttp://www.jeetblog.com/essential-skills-you-need-to-run-an-online-business/
http://www.jeetblog.com/essential-skills-you-need-to-run-an-online-business/#commentsSat, 11 Apr 2009 12:22:39 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=420I have always been a believer of the fact that to be successful in a business the only skills you need is spotting talent, convincing those with the talent to work with you and then managing them.

I am sure those are the most important skills for a person to succeed in business, be it an offline business or an online one. However, apart from that I think there are certain essential work specific skills which a person should possess that would allow him to run his business with greater efficiency.

Lets talk about an online business. It could be a blog, an e-commerce website, a membership site or an affiliate marketing business. If you have an idea related to any of these formats, you could just go out and hire people who could set up a blog or a website for you. So you see even the basic knowledge of things like HTML and FTP isn’t needed to get started.

But when it comes to running a business and managing day-to-day activities, it’s always good to have a basic knowledge of certain important aspects of your business.

For example, lets say you’ve got a WordPress blog which brings in a good sum every month. You’ve hired writers for producing content and a tech guy to take care of any technical glitches the blog might come across sometimes.

Now, one day you suddenly find that the blog is down since it has got to the Digg front page or due to some other reason. It could be a minor issue related to a plugin which can be easily taken care of by disabling it. But if you don’t have the basic knowledge of WordPress and how things work in a WordPress blog, you can do nothing except contacting your tech guy. And if he isn’t available at that time, you lose out on a huge number of visitors.

Recently, I faced a similar situation. I was working on a landing page template for one of my affiliate campaigns and needed some changes to the format. I don’t know CSS and never bothered to learn it. I always had my designer friends help me out in one way or the other. But this time, it was an odd hour of the day and I couldn’t find any of my friends online. Consequently, I had to postpone the work for the next day.

Later, when I consulted a friend on the issue, he found that it was just a minor CSS related hack which was needed. If only I had the basic knowledge of CSS, I could have easily resolved the issue myself.

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/essential-skills-you-need-to-run-an-online-business/feed/29How To Get Started After Installing WordPress – My WordCamp Delhi Presentationhttp://www.jeetblog.com/how-get-started-installing-wordpress-wordcamp-delhi/
http://www.jeetblog.com/how-get-started-installing-wordpress-wordcamp-delhi/#commentsMon, 23 Feb 2009 18:29:26 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=391India’s first WordCamp was held at Adobe’s offices at Noida, near Delhi on 21st and 22nd of this month. It brought in WordPress lovers from all around the country along with some eminent people which included Matt Mullenweg, WP founder and Om Malik, editor of gigaom.com plus a celebrated blogger.

I was one of the speakers at the event and talked about certain things one should do after installing WordPress to get the most out of it. The presentation was primarily aimed at the beginners who find themselves at crossroads after installing WP and are not sure where to start.

Here’s the presentation. You are free to download it and keep it for your reference.

Firefox is known for its cool and exquisite add ons and when it comes to playing with images online, there are a lot of such extensions available. However not all those add ons are compatible with Firefox 3 and not each one of them delivers the desired user experience.

Hence I decided to pick six add ons out of the available add ons for images. These six are really awesome and also compatible with the latest version of Firefox.

1. FoxSaver

FoxSaver is an awesome photo add on which converts your firefox browser to a screensaver / digital photo frame. After installing it, you get a small FoxSaver button in your status bar from where you can initiate it. It also supports Media RSS. I was very impressed by this add on without a doubt. You have to use it to experience it.

2. Piclens

I’ve already talked about Piclens in my post on incredible tools to browse Flickr photos and since I’m talking about the best firefox add ons for images, I am compelled to mention it again. It’s an amazing 3D graphic tool and definitely a must try.

3. Save Image in Folder

The Save Image in Folder firefox add on executes a very simple but very useful task. It adds an option to your right-click through which you can directly save an online image to your computer. You will first have to create or assign a particular folder in the add on options so that you can directly save the images to that folder. And if you are looking for license free stock images then check these stock photo websites to find such images.

4. Picnik

The Picnik add on makes online image editing quick and easy by adding menu options and toolbar icon directly import and edit the image in the well known web based image editor’s interface.

5. Image Zoom

Image Zoom adds a one click zoom functionality to images on the web. You could either use the options in the right click (context menu) or a combination of mouse buttons and scroll wheel. It works seamlessly with the latest firefox version.

6. Better Flickr

Last but by no means the least, the better flickr firefox extension developed by the amazing LifeHacker team adds a host of extra menu options to Flickr like more user links, photo magnifier and thumbnails enhancer. You can read a detailed explanation of it’s features here.

I hope you like these cool extensions. If you know about other such image related add ons which are compatible with the latest version of firefox then let’s hear about them in the comments.

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/six-best-firefox-3-add-on-stock-images/feed/29eCalc – Free Advanced Online Calculatorhttp://www.jeetblog.com/ecalc-free-advanced-online-calculator/
http://www.jeetblog.com/ecalc-free-advanced-online-calculator/#commentsWed, 23 Jul 2008 20:09:24 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=303While I’m not very much into mathematical calculations and the windows calculator works just fine for me, I know that students doing research online, especially engineering students would love to use an advanced online calculator which has better functions than the windows calculator.

eCalc is a free calculator which has both the basic and the advanced versions. It’s browser based and easy to work with. It’s scientific calculator has advanced features like support for complex numbers, unit conversion, base conversion, and has a built in equation solver. Those interested in using this should first watch the demo video which gives a good explanation of the advanced features and how to use them.

]]>http://www.jeetblog.com/ecalc-free-advanced-online-calculator/feed/15Photofunia Gives You Cool Photo Effects In One Clickhttp://www.jeetblog.com/photofunia-gives-you-cool-photo-effects-in-one-click/
http://www.jeetblog.com/photofunia-gives-you-cool-photo-effects-in-one-click/#commentsTue, 22 Jul 2008 18:25:59 +0000http://www.jeetblog.com/?p=299We’ve already talked about some sites like Dumpr and Gooifier which let you apply nice and weird photo effects to your images easily and quickly.

Photofunia is another such site which lets you add some nice effects to your photos and has more options then the sites mentioned above. The images should be not more than 500 KB in size and should be in jpeg, png or gif format.

It also allows you to save the new photo as an avatar or download it to your computer. Nice site to play around with your photos.